Betsy DeVos Urges Americans to Embrace ‘Education Freedom’

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is calling on Americans to embrace a vision of “education freedom” that empowers students and parents with a “multitude of pathways” toward new opportunities.

DeVos, speaking during a question-and-answer session Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said one such pathway would be educational savings accounts to benefit military families who don’t want to send their children to failing public schools.

“For too many decades,” Americans have had a “singular focus on going to a four-year college or university,” DeVos said during the exchange with Kay Coles James, president of The Heritage Foundation. “But there is a multitude of pathways [with] many opportunities beyond high school.”

James asked DeVos a series of questions during a wide-ranging discussion at CPAC that touched on the Trump administration’s policy goals, the prospects for school choice, options for military families, and the status of First Amendment freedoms in educational settings.

President Donald Trump has been “very eloquent” in helping students to understand at a young age that they can pursue many avenues as alternatives to a four-year college, DeVos said.

About 6 million jobs remain unfilled across America, she told the CPAC audience, because of “a mismatch in skills.”